The year 2021 marks the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the Russian Institute–today’s Harriman Institute–at Columbia University. As part of the program connected with this important milestone, the Institute has organized a Harriman Atrium exhibit on the 12th floor of the International Affairs Building focused on the building of the library and archival collections […]
The Muslim World Manuscripts Project: “Listening to all the Echoes in the Garden”
On July 14th, a celebration event was held online to mark the completion of the Muslim World Manuscripts digitization project: Celebrating the Manuscripts of the Muslim World Project (2018-2021). Over the past three years, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Columbia University Libraries, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, and a number of other Philadelphia partners […]
Architectural Preservation and Documentation, Human Rights, Memory and Trauma
During the last few weeks of the spring term of this most unusual year, I chatted with Banu Pekol, an AHDA (Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability) fellow at the Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights about her work with architectural history and human rights, and the role of architectural preservation and […]
Global Studies E-Resources & Library Guides at Columbia under COVID-19, Part 2
Part Two of a roundup on 2020-2021 Global Studies e-resources (digital collections and e-reference works) and library guides encompasses news on Jewish studies ; Latin America & Iberia ; and South & Southeast Asia. JEWISH STUDIES Michelle Margolis Chesner, Columbia’s Norman E. Alexander Librarian for Jewish Studies, reports the acquisition of two new collections […]
Global Studies E-Resources & Library Guides at Columbia under COVID-19, Part 1
A roundup on Global Studies e-resources (digital collections and e-reference works) and library guides new to Columbia during the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020-2021, Part 1: Africa, Middle East & Islam, and Russia, Eurasia & East Europe. AFRICA Recent events over the past year in the United States and Africa prompted Yuusuf Caruso,the African Studies Librarian, […]
Global Studies Librarians: Collaboration Roundup
The Global Studies team has been busy over the last year, supporting research and teaching through acquisitions, partnerships, and global collaboration, all in the midst of remote work and a global pandemic. Although we work on different areas of the world, with different languages and scripts, our goal is the same: to provide top-tier […]
The World in Digital: #DHJewish virtual conference recap
Last week was the inaugural (virtual) #DHJewish conference, based out of the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH). The conference spanned millenia, large portions of the world, and a variety of texts and languages. As a kind of pre-conference treat, a special issue in Reviews in Digital Humanities focusing on Jewish Studies projects […]
Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC)
On Human Rights Day, we might devote attention to the many groups that have been protesting against recent shifts in the understanding of “citizenship” in India. The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016, was designed to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 to recognize specific types of illegal immigrants, segregated by religion and country of origin. It was […]
Archives and Human Rights: International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10th: an Interview with Lucas Massuco (AHDA fellow, ISHR, CU, Memory Museum, Argentina)
For the upcoming occasion of International Human Rights Day on December 10th, I sat down with Lucas Massuco, 2020 Fellow at the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability (AHDA) Program at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR, Columbia University); Institutional Coordinator at the Memory Museum (Municipality of Rosario, Argentina), and Political Scientist […]
“Strategies of Presenting Text and Illustrations: Turning the Pages of a Sixteenth Century Book of Wisdom”: An Interview with Seher Agarwala
Last week, I “sat” down via Zoom with Seher Agarwala, a PhD student in the Art History and Archeology Department at Columbia , and asked her a few questions related to Indo-Persian manuscripts, the Muslim World Manuscript project and her own dissertation, which addresses the politics and ethics of 16th c. aesthetics in the […]